Alexander Čajčyc
The severity of Russian laws is alleviated by their non-obligatory nature.
Mikhail. Saltykov-Shchedrin
Do Russians really crave for authoritarianism and “iron hand”? In order to answer this question we need to analyze both Russian mentality and the political history of the country.
We shouldn’t substitute politics and economy by so-called “mentality”
It is a commonplace that Russian mentality is prone to authoritarianism, even to a larger extent than mentality of other European nations. They tie current poor situation with democracy and human rights in Belarus with the fact that the territory of Belarus had been under Russia for more than two hundred years, which resulted in implanting Russian mentality and habits in the country.
Another commonplace says that inner proneness to authoritarianism that is supposedly characteristic to Germans and Japanese, didn’t prevent Japan and Germany from becoming prosperous democratic societies after the World War II. They also created, with the help of an outside stimulus though, “economic miracles” founded on the principles of liberalism.
Therefore we need to distinguish possibility of building a liberal society from certain peculiarities of business and working culture in the framework of liberal economy that have been formed under the influence of tradition and mentality.
It applies to Russia as well. It is a country where authoritarian traditions must not be used to support the idea that Russians are prone to slavery and dictatorship.
Where Russians are freer than West Europeans
West Europeans are used to institutionalized freedom that is guaranteed by laws and customs. The history of Western liberal legal culture is centuries-old: from the Magna Charta and German self-governed town communities where “town air makes a person free” to emancipation of women and fight against the consequences of racial segregation in the United States (e.g. recent election of Barack Obama).
The legal culture of Russia, which had once been under the Mongol yoke, formed in a different manner, partly because of its immense territory. This culture was based on the power balance between despotic Center and sporadic, close to sabotage (at least until the next revision) implementation of orders in the regions.
Moreover, Russians learned to place objectivity and some higher justice above formal laws. Legal norms were of traditional poor quality and thus had to be creatively interpreted. Such attitude to laws is much more characteristic to Russians than to West Europeans. Law in Russia is not an imperative norm, it is a guideline at best, a document that directs and recommends, or sometimes even an obstacle that needs to be overcome. West European have not got used to such creative ways of applying the law. “You can always turn a law either way” – it is probable that in this aspect a Russian is predisposed to freedom more than a person from the West.
The Russian conflict: an individual versus a bureaucrat
One of Russian traditions is an authoritarian and, in most of the cases, unreasonable government that prevents a person from self-actualizing herself. The history of Russia is the history of never-ending silent battle of reason against law, an individual against a bureaucrat. Because of current legal system in Russia being so imperfect, immense intellectual and organizational efforts are being spent not on building and developing businesses, but on transferring assets abroad and reinvesting them again in Russia.
That very process has turned Cyprus into the second largest investor into Russia. More than that, potential off-shore countries account for more than half of foreign investments into Russian economy: the Netherlands – 18.6% from all investments, Cyprus – 16.6%, Luxembourg – 15.1%, Virgin Islands – 2.8%. Businesses and individuals were spending around USD 300 million on bribes and kickbacks, large-scale tax evasions and gimmicks with licensing were and are considerably distorting the economic data.
There are also quite “everyday” examples of violating imperfect laws: liquor advertising ban is being evaded by advertising mineral water, sweets, and even books under the same brand as vodka. The watchman, i.e. the state of Russia is as unresponsive to this and many other, just as comic, violations as a bored policeman at Kazan train station who walks with indifferent look past homeless people, illegal resellers, and beggars.
Authoritarianism has long been considered a distinctive trait of Asian mentality in China and Japan. But that is a functioning authoritarianism where citizens are truly subordinated to the ruler and don’t grudge secretely in their kitchens or sabotage the work of collective farms. Since the times of Mongol yoke, which largely defined the distinctive traits of the Grand Duchy of Moscow and later Russian empire, Russian mentality is a mentality of a “Westerner” captured by an “Oriental” master.
Silent, motivated more subconsciously but still quite energetic protest against the power, in the spirit of a stay-in strike, is a distinctive trait of such mentality. State institutions are being corroded; but at the same time Russian society manages to self-regulate and self-govern itself. Informal institutions are being created to supplement and substitute dysfunctional state institutions. They work quite well and are sometimes even more effective and fair than government.
Modern Russia: with no tsar above and no great mission
Under modern conditions where the will of a master or an official is not an obstacle anymore, many Russians who are used to act in a not so legal framework, view rightful interests of their fellow citizens as an obstacle. And that can become quite dangerous under certain conditions.
Current Russian rulers demonstrate the same attitude. For the first time in the history of Russia they do not on any transcendental or spiritual mission (the concepts of the Third Rome and tsar being appointed to rule his people by God) or a secular mission that is as global and pathos (global socialist revolution or, on the contrary, the romanticism of a democratic revolution in early 90s and setting the nation free from Communist dictatorship).
Russia’s current elite had been formed by people from middle and lower levels of Soviet and post-Soviet nomenklatura who found themselves with no such “leadership” above them although they were still used to acting in the same framework. Under such conditions corruption becomes a part of governing the state, the actual mechanisms of decision making are different from those defined by the Constitution, and the state sets the interests of business groups close to the leadership above everyone else’s.
Russia began its transformation to a market economy and pluralistic democracy in the 90s. However, such a transition can stall and turn into a stagnation, which appears to be the case here. Such “growth problems” can metastasize; there is a growing danger of collapse of the whole system of Russian state. Luckily, some fractions of Russian leadership are aware of this danger if judging by president Medvedev’s words.
A lot has been said about a unique Russian way toward democracy and freedom. Those who use such rhetoric, if only they do not use it only to suppress freedom, should look for ways to conduct liberal reforms and re-think the role of state in relevant Russian national traditions. These traditions, these national traits existed long before and still preserve their meaning.
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